During his pre-Super Bowl interview with Shannon Sharpe, in which Sharpe raised the question of Ray Lewis’ alleged involvement in a 2000 double murder, Lewis made the following, completely untrue, totally unbiblical statement:
“If (the family of the victims) knew, if they really knew, the way God works, He doesn’t use people who commit anything like that, for His glory. No way. It’s the total opposite.”
I’m sorry Ray, but Moses begs to differ. As does David, and Paul. All murderers. Praise God that this isn’t true; that God does, in fact, use sinners for His glory and His purposes. He has no other choice, in fact. How tragic that Ray Lewis, and so many others, ignore and deny this fundamental, life-giving Christian truth.
Here’s the interview. Fast forward to 1:54 for the relevant clip.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V0b1G9Kw04&w=600]
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22 responses to “Real Christians Don’t Sin: The Least True Thing Said During the Super Bowl”
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As he was handed the Lombardi trophy, Lewis said another misleading thing: “If God is for us, who can be against us!” In truth, this is a cry for the defeated, not the victorious. God, indeed, is always on the side of the sorry, the sinner, the murderer, and the loser.
Amen and amen. As I thought about it more, something else came to mind: Usually, the “real Christians don’t sin” fallacy causes people to lose their faith when they find that that do, in fact, continue to sin. In this case, however, it seems that the “real Christians don’t sin” mentality has led Lewis not to doubt his faith, but rather to deny his sin. Sad:(
“Out of my shameful failure and loss,
Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
Into the glorious gain of Thy cross,
Jesus, I come to Thee.”
gorgeous! Thanks for that:)
God uses all things for His glory, but the point biblically is not that God uses murderer’s (or whatever sin you want to substitute), but that God uses repentant murderer’s like Moses, David and Saul of Tarsus. “Neither do I condemn you” Christ says to the repentant, “Go and sin no more.” Praise God for His grace that not only cleanses us, but changes us. No change, no grace, no cleansing.
Bob – Thanks for the comment! But… have to say that I disagree. We have no evidence that the woman caught in adultery was repentant, just that she was terrified. The same goes for Paul, obviously. God knocks him off his horse and calls him to serve while he’s on his way to kill Christians. Jesus calls Levi (Matthew) while he is sitting in his tax-collecting booth (Mk 2). And so on and so forth… Paul himself writes that it is God’s kindness that leads to repentance, and not the other way around (Rom 2.4), and that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom 5.6). The Good News is that God loves us, saves us, changes us, uses us even when we are unrepentant, which is almost always! As Luther wrote, in the God/human relationship, we humans bring only two things to the table: sin and resistance.
The cleansing, then, is effected by one’s change?
Saved by change?
How much change is enough change to bring about the cleansing? A little change? A lot? Does it have to be visible? Verifiable?
Is one saved by God’s grace, or by one’s response to God’s grace?
I quote often, a comment I heard by Dr. Gerhard Forde in a class – using the term “evangelical” to mean Gospel centered – that “The art of being an evangelical theologian is not taking ‘but’ for an answer.”
“Repentance” is a word clouded by the modern use of moralistic, self-improvement categories which are like barnacles on its original meaning, and the word itself is in dire need of re-habilitation, as we use it now with little precision.
First, its source. What is it that makes us repent? Godly sorrow (2 Cor 7:10). Godly sorrow is the root of whatever it is we say we do when we repent.
Second, the meaning of the term itself. “Re” is the obvious “again”, and the Latin penitire means to “regret.” To quote the admittedly un-academic, but still more authoritative than I, online etymology dictionary, “The distinction between regret (q.v.) and repent is made in many modern languages, but the differentiation is not present in older periods.”
And this does, indeed, mesh nicely with historic Christian conceptions of “repentance.”
So, in recovering this word from modern usage, we find we are in the minority who consider repentance to signify a change in exterior behavior. It is, foremost, regret over former sin.
With that philological insight in mind, I’ll try to evaluate God’s use of repentant/unrepentant sinners:
“I have planned this in order to display my glory through Pharaoh” (Ex 14:14)
-So God does use the unrepentant, since Pharoah, at this point in the narrative, is far from anything we could call “regret” or “godly sorrow”
But we can easily agree that Moses, David, and Saul are all repentant in the PROPER sense of the word – that is, they all feel the weight of their own sinfulness (David with ‘a little help from his friends’). So we could say, with Luther, that the life of faith is one of repentance, but we must acknowledge (1) that God can use anyone and (2) that our definition of repentance has fallen prey to modern sensibilities which are, in many ways, divergent from biblical concepts
I think the main point here is that our will, no matter how free it is, is not stronger than God’s Will. This is not to say that God forces us to do anything, he does not, but His will is causal and fundamentally different from ours. He is the cause, we are the effect and we act within that context.
God can and does bring good out of our imperfections and sin despite our best efforts against His goodness. The unrepentant sinner, therefore, does nothing to diminish God’s glory and, in a certain way, can magnify His glory.
For example, we don’t know that those who murdered Jesus Christ ever repented. We don’t know that Judas ever repented, and tradition tells us he did not. But we do know that our salvation hinges on His death and resurrection no matter what was in the hearts of those who betrayed and murdered Him.
To be sure, a repentant sinner will bring showers of Grace on himself and those around him, but repentance on the part of the sinner is not a necessary condition for God to bring good out of the situation.
Is God more glorified by the repentant or the unrepentant? If you have to hesitate to answer that question you demonstrate the point that I was making. If you don’t repent, you’re not saved – unless you care to do battle with that, excising repentance from saving faith. The Westminster divines did a very fair job in defining repentance – obviously that’s not our source, but an excellent scriptural summary. And Phil, are telling me people are saved without “responding to the gospel?” Is faith a response? Or do you you hold to the false doctrine of “eternal justification”? Are we justified through faith or merely through election?
R-J, Saul of Tarsus not repentant? The woman caught in adultery not repentant? Is “kindness” the only tool at God’s disposal? “The terror of The Lord” had been supplanted or decommissioned? It’s not “either/or” it’s both/and and a lot more. We’re not arguing God’s sovereignty to use Pharaoh’s and Cyrus’s and murderers and rapists for His glory – we are making the explicit biblical point that usefulness in the kingdom of God is based on integrity and godliness. 2 Tim. 2:21, “Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.” The Word of God 2 Tim. 3:16-17), and a holy life – the primary means God uses to equip a man of God “for every good work.” This is why it’s necessary to avoid the Forde confusion of justification and sanctification. Contra Forde, sanctification is not “merely getting use to your justification.” So, (1) we need to define saving faith – maybe James 2 helps us here, and then we need to accurately see tht though regeneration is monergistic, granting saving faith whereby a sinner is justified, sanctification (in its entirety) is synergistic. These are not rocket-science truths, but these are truths being undermined by this over-reactionary-fixation on a limited definition if grace – that leads to Antinomianism. Legalism is not the only error!
R-J, with reference to justification all we bring to the table is sin and resistance – but my brother, that is not all we bring to the table in living the Christian life! We bring a new heart, a heart upon which is written the law of God to delight in, love and long for, we bring the empowerment of the Spirit, we bring the armor of God, all of which has to do with the appropriating of God-given resources. We run, we fight, we trust, we deny, we disciple ourselves unto godliness. Does it strike you as carnal that the fruit of the Spirit includes “SELF-control”? Don’t we want “Spirit-controlled”? Maybe you’ve bought into a false dichotomy.
Bob. I see a desire for truth in your post. I really appreciate your view and your interesting points about self control. Spirit controlled life produces self control! So powerful that our participation with God is so central to our relationship with Him.
To all on the thread. I love this talk and the deep search for truth that is going on.
Love God
Love People
Keep it up guys!
Hmmm…I could be wrong–but I believe Ray is speaking about the man who told him he was “innocent but he was going down for it anyway”. Not speaking about himself. Semantics…gotta love it.
Bob S.
Thank you for giving a full Biblical view of a life in Christ.
‘There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk according to the Spirit, not the flesh.’ (Rom 8.1) Look up the part of the Greek online that the NIV and a few translations leave out.
We are not saved by repentance, but it was an early heresy in the Church that said our will had nothing to do with a life in Christ. It is clearly not how much we repent, how visible it is, or how sorry we feel, but it is a humility and willingness before God that allows us to be used for Holy purposes. Pharoh was used for God’s glory indeed. However, I don’t want to be used that way. He was used as someone against God to show how powerful God was over us tiny humans. God is so powerful, but the blessed promise is that God uses us for His Glory in a positive way where ‘he comes in that Day to be glorified in all His Saints and to be admired among all those who believe’ (2 thes 1.9). I want to be used in this way, not in a way where God’s glory is shown by destroying me since I was unwilling to be humble before God. God’s grace saves us indeed, and let us never ignore that God give Grace to the HUMBLE. It is not ‘how hard or well we repent’ that saves us but only God’s grace.
When God revealed himself to Paul, Moses, and David and showed them their sin, they were humble and willing to turn from sin. For those who will not be humble before God as He graciously reveals Himself to us in kindness and unconditional love, he ‘gives them over in the sinful desires’ (rom 1.24). Our free will does not save us; it merely opens or closes us to the grace of God which is more powerful and salvific than any of us understand.
Heresy repeats itself. The term synergia was termed to show that when God’s will and mans will are in line, God works in us in our humility to bring a new, redeemed life and discipline us in godliness to be vessels of honor, not of wrath. His glory is shown over every vessel, but let us not repeat ancient heresy and say that just because His Glory is shown as a result of us then we have salvation. Salvation is by grace THROUGH FAITH. Repentance is a change of mind! Our mind changes and will in turn affect who we follow. The leader of deciet and sin or the leader of everlasting life.
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows that he will also reap. For he who sows to the flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in do season we shall reap if we do not grow weary.’ (Gal 6.7-9)
Show me one place in scripture that is a description of Jesus on His thrown where he does not judge us according to what we have done in the flesh?
(Matthew 7.17-27) (v 21 = Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven)
Matt 25.31-46 (read up on the sheep and goats)
My thought is that we have redefined grace and faith so much that it is no longer for the healing of our soul into a union where we walk with God in His Kingdom, but we only want a judicial declaration of forgiveness to believe in so that we can feel good about ourselves and be comfortable. (notice the greek for justification originally meant to make one righteous, not to declare one righteous, but this was an interp added later, and when Noah’s faith was counted to him as righteousness, the Hebrew for counted is more closely to ‘considered’, so God considered him righteous because he was humble and willing to follow God in righteousness even though he was not perfected yet) That’s why calvin followers often have to ‘focus on grace’ so much because you miss the point that God’s grace works in us and tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. FEAR AND TREMBLING! That’s freakin scary. We should focus on grace indeed! But not in a way that leads us to ignore our disobedience and reject repentance! Let it never be! Repentance is a turning of our will to God’s for His will of righteousness for His Will will not change! We must be in submission to God to be objects that participate in His Honor. 2 Peter 1 lays out how we can be sure to never fall from our walk with God, and it does not say, ‘just focus on grace and remember you have been judicially declared forgiven so it doesnt matter if you repent or not at all.’
Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. Heb 12.14-15
See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven?
Heb 12.25
“If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons, for what son is there whom a father does not chasten, but if you are without chastening of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.” Heb 12.7-8
“Now I make known to you bretheren the gospel which I preaced to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preaced to you, unless you believed in vain.” (1 Cor 15.1-2)
“Behold then the kindness and severity of God, to those who fell, severety, but to you God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness, otherwise you also will be cut off.” Rom 11:22
‘See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.’ Col 2.8
Let our logic and philosophy that we base around ideas calvin wrote about 1500 years after Christ had already established the truth through the apostles never make us blind to the active life of righteousness God offers to all who follow Him. By His Grace we are saved (healed and rescued) through Faith. His power. Our participation and humility.
With love in Christ. Pray for me.
Lee
P,S. Find me a time where the bible says we are justified by faith alone. Okay, now find me a time the bible says we are justified by faith and works (James). Hmm.. this is clearly not works of merit as in the law, for paul makes that perfectly clear, but shows that our participation in following God when He calls us out on our sin is important. Paul followed, David followed, Moses followed in the desert for 40 years. Oh that my soul would be humble as these great men! They were great because of their humility(Greek from dirt, ground, like moldability). They were not great on their own but because they submitted humbly to the most magnificent potter any of us can imagine.
Glory be to God in the highest and peace among all men through the good news! Christ is risen!
Really interesting insights, Lee.
We certainly are saved by grace. I think that the repentance (and the work that follows) comes as a loving response to the grace we receive. We are embodied beings and it takes actual works to form our will to God’s will. A consistent and intentional choice of His will over our own will until the two are united. This, to me, seems to be why we require both faith and works to be saved.
Somewhat analogous is this thought from St. Thomas Aquinas: “Leaves without flowers: These are they who have words without works”
Sara thanks for the reply. I believe it is by grace as well that we are healed by God. He gives grace to the humble, so I completely agree that this humility is the forming of our will to His. By this we participate in the Grace God wants to give to all men. He is so loving and we are so not deserving. Praise to God in the highest!
Repentance is just a change of mind (but this will always change our actions, not neccesarily to perfection but to growth towards God), so if someone is not humble and open to the Grace God offers, repentance is his/her mind change to be humble and not hostile towards God. This is my biblical opinion and the Christian opinion of councils for the first 1000 years of all Christians and the continuing teaching of the continued Eastern Orthodox Chruch which is the only Body that holds to Christus Victor as the theory of atonement that the early church taught. Anslem rewrote atonement for the catholics and calvin for the protestant reformation. Wikipedia it, its interesting stuff!
A lot of good stuff here! And thankful for a space in which we can hash all this out. For my part, speaking personally, I am grateful that “when we are faithless, he is faithful” (2Ti 2.13), and that my hope rests on nothing more and nothing less than the cross of Christ. As Rod Rosenbladt once said, when asked about when he “got saved”, I was saved 2000 year ago. Praise Jesus!
Is it Christ’s death and resurrection that saves us or our unity to Christ’s death and resurrection that saves us? If it is the former, how will anyone end up condemned? Universalism prevails because of this logic. (Romans 6.1-6, 1 Peter 3 on baptism)
RJ – appreciate the discussion brother – your last post illustrated exactly what I’m trying to communicate. The text you refer to (2 Tim. 2:13) is not a comfort for the “faithless” but a dire warning! The previous verse says, “If we deny Him, He will deny us” – why? Because He is faithful! If we are faithless He is faithful to deny us – “for He cannot deny Himself.” It is the interpretation of texts that is at issue in these debates about “grace”. A matter of “handling accurately the word of truth” – for, says Peter, distorting the teaching of Scripture does severe harm (2 Pet. 3:16).
Your quote of Rod Rosenbladt is precisely the error I mentioned earlier (Eternal Justification). You weren’t saved 2000 years ago – you were born a “child of wrath even as the rest” (Eph. 2) whether elect or not. You didn’t get saved when Jesus died on Calvary; You weren’t reconciled to God until you we’re justified through faith. This is not quibbling over semantics or minutiae – this is careful exegesis and theology. Praise God for His inexpressible gift of Himself in Christ 2 Cor. 915); but let us not use that as a proof text for faulty expressions of sober truth. Truth matters, theology matters; some things are more important than others and some things more difficult than others – but accurate students of the Word (2 Tim. 2:15) we must be.
Lee, thanks for the kudos – a little verbose bro – I’ve erred that way many times myself – a point can ge lost after 16 paragraphs – and it appeared we were on different pages of a number if topics – but discussion is good.
Bob, I think that last verse you mentioned is especially helpful: “if we deny him, he also will deny us…” (2 Tim 2:12) Jesus says almost the same in Mt. 10:33: “but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”
I suppose it is standard for us mbird-type folks to categorize these sayings as ‘law’, by which we mean righteous requirements and threats which have been rendered impotent by the redemption already accomplished for us 2000 years ago on the cross (never mind that Paul writes 2:12 after that fact).
But I worry that in so doing we find the God of the Bible to be far less loving than He actually is. It is as if the sublime Christian conviction that ‘God is Love’ means little more to us than “God loved us enough to save us from the punishment that He Himself had been justly threatening to carry out.” Or worse, that “Jesus the merciful one has finally saved us from the wrathful, law-bound God of the Old Testament.” Clearly no one (I know of) is saying the latter, though it is certainly tempting to think it. But I think many have contented themselves with the former, which, to me, is a bummer.
The point of salvation is reconciliation, right? That is, the point of God’s ‘one-way love’ shown on the cross and all throughout Scripture was not merely that it would save us from wrath and punishment, but that it would take root and bear fruit in our hearts and become TWO-way love. And if it does not – that is, if we do not actually repent, if we do not actually love Him – then what redemption is there? Either a heaven without God (hell?) or a heaven where we still hate God (hell?). So, in my view, even God’s (and Jesus’) wrath, even His condemnation and His threats to deny us, are still manifestations of his inexorable love, because He will not rest (nor allow us to rest) until our wandering hearts are His. Does that make sense?
Speaking as a Lutheran, I think that portion of our church service called the Confession gets at the idea being discussed here. We, the congregation, confess to God that we have not loved Him with our whole heart (which is the standard set by the Law) nor have we loved our neighbor as ourselves (also the standard of the Law.) I find this to be preferable to churches I have occasionally attended in which the congregation repeatedly asserts (in “praise songs”, for example) their profound love of God and their vocal determination to please Him with their lives. I am pretty certain God is pleased with me, but not as a result of anything in me (see sin and resistance, above) – rather, as a result of my union with Christ which occurred in my baptism. The account of the two men worshipping in the Temple comes readily to mind as being applicable here. Great discussion!
I am a HUGE Ray Lewis fan!! Of his football and leadership, not his theology. Jus another contribution to the pop culture definition by which most understand Christ. The above discussion illustrates the difference betwen Objective and subjective justification. Objective Justification says I was saved 2000 years ago, subjective justification says it is applied to me, personally when the Holy Spirit gifted me with faith. Both are totally by grace. Even repentance itself is a gift of grace and a work of the Spirit. Sorry posting is “late”, just “found” the website today—or did it find me lol
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